Jack Bartley, having dried his eyes and swallowed his bread and
butter, considered the medal with much attention.
'I say,' he remarked at length, 'will you give me this, Bob?'
'I don't mind, You can take it if you like.'
'Thanks!'
Jack wrapped it up and put it in his waistcoat pocket, and before
long rose to take leave of his friends.
'I only wish I'd got a wife like you,' he observed at the door, as
he saw Pennyloaf bending over the two children, recently put to bed.
Pennyloaf's eyes gleamed at the compliment, and she turned them to
her husband.
'She's nothing to boast of,' said Bob, judicially and masculinely.
'All women are pretty much alike.'
And Pennyloaf tried to smile at the snub.
Having devoted one evening to domestic quietude, Bob naturally felt
himself free to dispose of the next in a manner more to his taste.
The pleasures which sufficed to keep him from home had the same
sordid monotony which characterises life in general for the lower
strata of society. If he had money, there was the music-hall; if he
had none, there were the streets. Being in the latter condition
to-night, he joined a company of male and female intimates, and with
them strolled aimlessly from one familiar rendezvous to another.
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